The present invention relates to techniques for generating financial aid applications.
A typical financial aid application includes information about the financial state of a student, which facilitates determining whether the student qualifies for financial aid and the amount of financial aid that the student qualifies for. Note that the information about the student's financial state can include, but is not limited to, information related to bank accounts and investment accounts, salaries, and expenses (e.g., loans or credit card payments).
One such financial aid application is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) provided by the United States Department of Education. The Department of Education provides a web-based tool for generating and submitting a FAFSA application online. To use this tool, a student or a parent/guardian gathers the requested financial information and fills out an online financial aid application. For a financially-independent student (i.e., a student who cannot be claimed as a dependent of another person), a substantial portion of the information requested by the financial aid application is the same information that is found in the student's tax return. For a student who is financially-dependent, a substantial portion of the information can similarly be found in a tax return for a parent or a guardian of the student.
Unfortunately, the information about the financial state of the student (and the parent or guardian) must be manually entered twice: once when preparing a tax return, and once when preparing a FAFSA application.